Former Saddam aide taken into custody: report

Another senior official from deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's regime, Mizban Khidir Hadi, has been taken into US custody, the Washington Post reported yesterday.

A former member of the Revolutionary Command Council, the highest body within the deposed government, Hadi was number 41 on the US list of 55 most wanted Iraqi officials.

He was captured on Thursday in Baghdad, according to US military sources cited by the paper.

Hadi had been part of Saddam's inner circle for two decades. Last year he was named military chief for the southern region of Iraq, including the cities of Karbala and Najaf.

He was a decorated military man who received honours for his service in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and in suppressing the Shi'ite rebellion that followed Iraq's ouster from Kuwait.");document.write("

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His arrest brings to 18 the number of Iraqi officials on the most wanted list who have been taken into US custody.

Yesterday, US Central Command announced two other detentions: former vice president Taha Muhyl al-Din Maruf and former deputy prime minister Abd al-Tawab Mullah Huwaysh, who was also director of Saddam's Office of Military Industrialisation.